


when love arrives

by autoclaves



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: (not at the same time lmao), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, M/M, Marriage Proposal, unbearable tenderness !! gratuitous pining !!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-26 04:29:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19760614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autoclaves/pseuds/autoclaves
Summary: Charles says it into the space between them, practically placing the words onto Erik’s lips. He reaches around to skim Erik’s back, the planes of his shoulders and dip marking his spine—Erik exhales slowly, pausing as if he isn’t sure he’s allowed, so Charles draws him closer like a prayer, an unanswered plea. And then in the second between one breath and the next, Erik is surging forward to kiss him, pressing him against the wall with wild abandon.*“After all this time?” he says softly, reaching out for Erik’s hands, now knotted and creased with age, but still quintessentially Erik. He threads his fingers through them and squeezes, the way Erik had the first night they’d gone to bed together. It’s as if he can somehow reverse the years and the time they’d wasted. (But they’d been young and angry and hurting during those times. It’s the culmination of those years which has led them to this, to now.)*[ or, charles and erik and two different beginnings ]





	1. one

So I said _What do you_

 _want, sweetheart?_ and you said _Kiss me._ Here I am

leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome

burns. We are all just trying to be holy.

* * *

The alleyway they choose to scout the club from is dark, distinctly more unwelcoming compared to the flashing lights and pulse of music they’d just left behind. Charles shudders involuntarily as he hears a skittering noise from the shadows to his left.

Erik flashes a torch into the narrow gap between buildings, mouth twisted into a grimace. “Are you _certain_ she’s going to come here?”

“The manager said her shift ended a few minutes ago. Dancers have a separate exit around the back, and they usually go down this street because it intersects with the main road. We need to catch her before she goes home.” Charles puts two fingers to his temple; not that he needs the crutch, but it's a force of habit. People tend to feel safer if they believe his telepathy is linked to physical cues, that it can be turned off like a switch with the flick of a hand. 

He filters through the usual stream of consciousness from passerby— _is she going to be waiting—traffic’s hell today, huh—I hope the kids haven’t destroyed the house yet—need to pick up more vegetables for dinner—isn’t he just insufferable_ —and narrows the search as Erik lounges against the wall, levitating his flashlight by its metal casing. _Where are you,_ he thinks, with a tinge of desperation. So far, none of the others they’d been to had been particularly receptive, and they need _something_ to prove that this entire journey hasn’t been a fool’s errand. _Where are you?_

A few seconds later, he latches onto a stray thought—a glimpse of a memory attached to exactly the mind he’s looking for—and snaps his fingers. Erik shifts his weight at the noise so that he’s standing up straight. “Did you get a lock on her?”

Charles projects the memory at him. “That’s her. Small, dark hair, she’s wearing her dancer’s outfit still. Tattoos on her back. If we go through there and wait, we’ll bump into her as she leaves.”

Erik nods in a single controlled gesture, and turns the flashlight so that it illuminates the walls of the alley. They make their way between the two buildings, positioning themselves at the other end so that they can watch the passerby flood past. There aren’t too many at this hour, but Charles makes sure to keep his mind focused on the mutant they want. They really do need numbers for their cause.

A slight figure wearing a jacket over her dress and heeled boots comes into view, and Erik grabs at his wrist. “Her?” He jerks his head in the direction.

“Yeah,” Charles breathes. He smooths down his hair and when she passes by, ducks out to give her a tap on the shoulder. “Hello, miss, I’m Charles Xavier. My companion here is Erik Lehnsherr.”

The woman whirls around, her hands immediately coming up into a defensive position as her eyes narrow. Erik steps out into the street as well, about to launch into their usual mutant-recruitment spiel, but she cuts him off with a scowl. “I’m off shift. I don’t want your money, and I don’t do favors for strange men.”

It’s then that Charles realizes how this looks. Two men in the dark, who, for all intents and purposes, had followed a female club dancer to accost her in the shadows near an alley. Charles may have overlooked the full implications of the situation before, but he’s had a sister for most of his life and worried about the same happening to her. He doesn’t have to read the mutant’s mind to see that she’s scared, ready to lash out in self-defense. He touches Erik’s arm briefly to stop him— _not yet, we’re scaring her_ —and tries to soothe her; “No, we’re not here for that. We just want to talk to you for a second.”

She crosses her arms, the motion wrapping the jacket more firmly around her thin shoulders. “Yeah, that’s what they all say. I told you, I’m off the clock.”

Her annoyance, underlaid with a sort of pounding adrenaline-fueled fear, is giving Charles a headache. A single look at the emotions bleeding off her— _the nerve of these assholes, I should just go, what if they follow me, oh, my God, what if they follow me_ —show that they’re about to lose her. 

_Maybe you should just go straight to showing off your power,_ he thinks at Erik. Perhaps it’ll buy them some time, convince her it isn’t a sexual favor that they’re trying to solicit. _Her name is Angel Salvadore,_ he adds after a perfunctory skim of her mind.

“We’re looking for people with… incredible abilities, miss.” Erik cuts in smoothly. “Like this.” He begins to levitate the flashlight again, giving it a spin in mid-air. “We’ve heard that perhaps you’ve had experiences with this as well.”

Angel widens her eyes and allows herself to look appropriately enthralled, but her wariness is slamming full tilt against the edges of Charles’ mind. “Nice magic trick, boys, but I do have to get home—” she begins, and Charles waves frantically at her.

“Miss, I see you’re still worried about our intentions.” He glances down the street and takes a gamble. She does work at a club reputable for its certain discreet services, after all. “Believe me when I say we aren’t interested. At all.” He snakes a hand around Erik’s waist to reel him in with a bit more show than necessary. Splays his fingers wide against the edge of a hipbone, just indecent enough to be called proprietary. Erik’s deliberate step falters as he bumps against Charles, and he scrambles to explain. _Just go with it, just go with it, she was about to leave and I didn’t know how else to make her listen._

Erik goes with it. 

Angel stays. She’s not nearly as on edge now that she seems to understand they have no interest in her body per se, and although there’s a vague lingering curiosity about the nature of their relationship, she’s taking the mutant revelation very well. Erik starts up their recruitment speech again, talking animatedly about their search for new mutants and vision of a partnership, an alliance where none of them have to be alone.

Looking at Erik’s profile silhouetted against the faint light from the street, the way the smallest microexpressions flicker across it as he speaks with increasing passion, Charles realizes this may not have been such a good idea. They’re pressed together from flank to shoulder. It’s close, too close; Erik is a line of heat against him, and his stomach twists like a physical pain. He knows it’s a show. It hurts him more than he cares to admit, so he drops his arm and takes a fraction of a step away on the pretense of adjusting his shirt. 

Angel looks thoughtful as Erik demonstrates his affinity for magnetism again, this time with a handful of loose change and the car keys from Charles’ pocket. 

“My turn,” she says decisively, taking off the jacket. Her tattoos, it turns out, are not ink at all, but part of her mutation instead. As she rolls her shoulders outwards, glimmering insect wings following the delicate lines of the markings unfurl from her skin. The wings begin to hum, and she launches herself upwards to flit into the air.

Erik claps politely, a grin overtaking the sharp lines of his face. Charles feels like he’s been punched in the gut at the sight of it. This infatuation—this crush, whatever it is, is getting out of hand. He can’t keep doing this, especially not with men. Not until he knows for certain, and even then Charles isn’t naive enough to believe it’ll be safe. Plenty of his partners would have been willing to sell out their encounters if it came to it. 

They leave Angel an address and she promises that she’ll be there by the end of the week. It’s not until she’s out of sight that Erik turns to him. “What the hell was that?”

Charles shrugs, putting up another wall of shields. “She was afraid we were going to do what men like to do pretty girls in alleys. I had to make sure—I had to make sure she heard us out, and it was the only way to prove her fear was unfounded.” It wasn’t, and Charles knows that. Perhaps Erik does, too. 

“Not so unfounded.” He eyes Charles speculatively. “You seem to have no problem taking pretty girls into alleys at any other time.”

“Enthusiastic consent does perhaps make a difference in that regard,” Charles says. He’s starting to flush under Erik’s insistent gaze. For the second time that night, he checks to make sure the street is empty and takes a gamble. Either Erik wants him, or he doesn’t—either way, this ends tonight. He needs an answer, and if it’s not the one he wants, he’ll go to a bar later tonight to get it out of his system. “Anyway, it was only a lie of omission; surely you agree that that’s preferable to an outright one?”

Erik’s face doesn’t change, but neither does he walk away, so Charles spells it out for him. “I have no problem taking pretty boys into alleys, either.”

It’s only then that Erik smiles, one corner of his mouth lifting up. He takes Charles’ wrists in his hands, sliding up to press their palms together, and uses that leverage to back them both up against the wall of the building. Charles lets him, pleased. He’d hoped, yes, but for it to actually happen is nothing short of a miracle. How long has it been since he’s wanted, and been wanted back? How long since he’s trusted the way he instinctually trusts Erik?

“Like I’m doing to you?” Erik murmurs, hands letting go in favor of finding their way to Charles’ face. It’s soft, almost tender; a kind of touch Charles wouldn’t have believed Erik Lehnsherr was capable of. He’s glad he was wrong. 

“Just like what you’re doing to me,” Charles says into the space between them, practically placing the words onto Erik’s lips. He reaches around to skim Erik’s back, the planes of his shoulders and dip marking his spine—Erik exhales slowly, pausing as if he isn’t sure he’s allowed, so Charles draws him closer like a prayer, an unanswered plea. And then in the second between one breath and the next, Erik is surging forward to kiss him, pressing him against the wall with wild abandon.

* * *

“You wanted me,” Charles is propped up on one elbow, tracing the bow of Erik’s lips with a single finger. They relax into something close to a smile as Charles speaks. Moonlight spills into the motel room through its single open window, and throws both their faces into stark relief like something out a black-and-white film.

“Of course,” Erik answers, easily as breathing. _I’ve never not wanted you._ He tilts his head up a fraction and kisses Charles’ finger. It’s a tender gesture, soft and wanting. There’s a frisson of fear that underlies his thoughts—anger and unyielding iron, an image of a pink triangle blurring into the background, and with cold rolling up his spine, Charles remembers that Erik would have lived in Germany during the war. The projections are followed by a forceful, _I won’t lose you._ Suddenly, Charles isn’t so sure which one of them originated the thought. “I won’t lose you,” he says out loud. The possessive simplicity of the words almost scares him.

“We’ll be careful,” Erik says, and pushes up to kiss him. Charles lets himself fall back until they’re lying face to face on their sides. Moonlight limns Erik with silver; the line of his throat, the sheets around his hips, his cheekbones and eyelashes and lovely, lovely mouth. 

Charles runs his hands over it all before speaking again. “We won’t have to be, someday. We won’t have to hide anymore.” They both know he’s not just referring to homosexuality.

“And until then?” Erik says with a soft laugh that means he’s skeptical. Charles doesn’t fight him, this time, merely closes his eyes and wraps his arms more firmly around them both.

“We’ll have world enough, and time.”


	2. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so when i said tomorrow, i lied
> 
> this part is way less serious and much more self-indulgent than the last, idek what happened because this was supposed to all be part of one cohesive piece sfljgafljah

I’ll give you my heart to make a place

for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger.

Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars

for you?

* * *

On June 26, 2015, Charles’ morning is interrupted by a rather loud shriek from the grounds. Despite everything, he still lets himself hope.

In precisely two minutes, a harried-looking Jean Grey hurries into the study, pulling along a Magneto dressed in slacks , while Erik valiantly tries to pretend he’s levitating on his own means for dramatic effect rather than being forcibly lifted by a telekinetic half his age. 

“All yours, Professor,” Jean says, unceremoniously dropping him onto his feet. “Tell him to stop showing up like this, the new students are going mad with panic. Kitty’s phasing  _ everywhere _ .” With that, she whisks out of the study again, door yanking shut with just enough of a rattle to tastefully convey irritation. 

Erik eyes it as he makes his way over to Charles, and the metal lock clicks shut under his gaze. “Jean doesn’t seem to like me much,” he says conversationally.

“Yes, well, perhaps a known mutant terrorist showing up at her school is… disconcerting. Children live here, you know.” Charles doesn’t look up from the morning’s paper he’s reading. He thinks he knows what Erik is going to ask him. He thinks he would do the same if given the chance to. 

(Or is he thinking at all? Where is the line between rational thought and the sentimental hope of an old man? Perhaps it’s merely his mind giving voice to what he dares to wish for.)

“You saw the headlines today?” Erik comments as he pulls up a chair and sits down, pointedly ignoring the jab about terrorism. His voice is controlled; he may as well be talking about the weather. 

“Mhm,” Charles folds the newspaper in half and sets it aside, but not before both of them can clearly see the title emblazoned on the first page.  _ Supreme Court rules to legalize same-sex marriage in all fifty states.  _ Beneath that announcement is a picture of two young men holding hands to be married under a blue sky. Charles had deliberately avoided looking at it during breakfast when the page was passed around, because there was something about it, something about the way they were standing and maybe the whipcord-thin silhouette of the one on the right, that reminded him of things which hadn’t come to pass after all.

Nobody had protested when he left the table a bit earlier than normal, taking the newspaper with him. And so he’d sat there, staring at the walls of his study and the metal chess set in the corner, hoping against hope for something he couldn’t even put a name to. Anonymous motel rooms, stolen kisses like bargains before the dawn brushed them away; a chess game played move by move with excruciating slowness over the better part of a century—they are at an impasse. It isn’t enough anymore, not for Charles. It had never been enough, these scraps of reconciliation as they fumble towards an endgame.

“You know what I’m here for, then.” Erik’s voice is low and urgent, with something in it that begs Charles to look at him. When he does, Erik’s mind is a tangle of  _ nerveshesitancyregrethopehopehopehope.  _ His thoughts are playing out in bursts of brilliant color that stutter as he attempts to shield them— _ I love you I do let me try one more time please say yes please don’t leave me _ .

More than anything, it’s the overwhelming presence of hope that startles Charles into speaking. 

“After all this time?” he says softly, reaching out for Erik’s hands, now knotted and creased with age, but still quintessentially  _ Erik _ . He threads his fingers through them and squeezes, the way Erik had the first night they’d gone to bed together. It’s as if he can somehow reverse the years and the time they’d wasted. (But they’d been young and angry and hurting during those times. It’s the culmination of those years which has led them to this, to now.)

“I thought perhaps we wouldn’t have made it. There were times when it seemed more likely we’d leave each other to burn.”  _ It’s you it’s you it’s you of course it’s always been you.  _ Erik’s thoughts, steady as a heartbeat, belie his words.

“It’s always been you,” Charles echoes back at him and it feels like a promise. “You know what my answer will be.” 

Erik shudders on his next exhale, his hand shaking in Charles’. Somehow, his other hand makes its way between the two of them, and Charles feels something cool and metal on his skin. Erik is staring at him, at their intertwined hands, with an indecipherable expression. It’s something akin to fear, almost, but with a wild, desperate edge that speaks of longing—the expression of someone with everything they’ve ever wanted and never thought they could have in their hands, unsure of what to do with it now that they have it.

He knows what that expression means because he thinks it might be on his face, too. He feels unspeakably raw, flayed open with all his heartstrings on display. 

“Yes,” he says, repeating it over and over. “Yes, yes, how could you have doubted that I would—” Charles fumbles at the ring with trembling fingers. An inscription on the inside of the band catches his eye; it’s handwritten, in Erik’s lovely classical cursive, and the same on both rings. 

Erik flips it over so that he can see, and reads it out. “World enough, and time.” 

Charles remembers moonlight through an open window, that first night Erik had kissed him like drowning. No, not like drowning; like coming alive. Like the way they'd pulled each other out of the Atlantic when they met. He puts the ring onto his left hand, puts Erik’s onto him in nearly the same motion. The band shifts a little to settle comfortably onto the base of his fourth finger, as if it’d always been there. And perhaps it had. Perhaps this is what it all comes down to.

“A promise. We’ll have world enough, and time.” Erik’s mouth stumbles over the same words Charles had used to give him everything fifty years ago. He leans forward, moving out of the chair and kneeling before Charles; back straight and both hands still clasped. 

“Shh,” Erik tells him when Charles’ breath catches in his throat and makes itself heard in a gasping stutter. His face is unbearably tender, still sharp and strong even after everything.  _ I love him _ , Charles thinks fiercely. It’s not something they say often, or at all, really, because they have their own ways of letting the other know, but he opens his mind anyway.  _ I love you I’ve loved you for so long more than half my life I’ve made you doubt me but I love you I won’t make the same mistakes again. _

Erik’s hands come up to cradle his face on either side, the touch ever so gentle, and draws them close. The kiss that follows makes Charles ache.  _ I love you,  _ Erik thinks back, like he’s trying to be careful.  _ I love you as much as I can ever love anyone and this time I won’t leave this time I’ll be good enough I swear  _ and Charles responds with,  _ Stay, please stay marry me stay with me you’re more than enough just you  _ and then it’s unclear who’s thinking what or who starts crying, but they’re clutching at each other, hands and rings and minds, and it’s like coming home. 

* * *

Outside the school building, seventeen-year old Bobby Drake has finally managed to convince Kitty to stop phasing, that no, Magneto showing up on school grounds doesn’t mean he’s declaring war; no, really, I’m not kidding, he’s just old and lonely and wants to see Professor X; yes, this is a normal occurrence, it happens every month and to be honest it’s easier to just let them be,  _ especially _ after that incident we will never speak about again; no, what did I  _ just _ say we’re never going to speak about that, ever. Most of the older students are clustered in a loose group by the lake, chattering about this new development in hushed tones. Both money and copies of today’s headline are exchanging hands. 

Jean, who is smiling despite herself, debates on whether she should tell them what happened in there—she hadn’t meant to pry, but the overwhelming wave of  _ hopereliefhappinesslovelovelove  _ she’d felt from the direction of the school made eavesdropping a moot point. At the very least it’ll get the kids to stop gossiping and come back to their lessons, which they’re already four minutes late for. 

Some of them seem to be getting the same idea (about the gossip, not the lessons), because all of a sudden, she has fifteen kids clamoring at her mental walls as their eyes turn to her. 

“Jean! Ms. Grey, you’re psionic! What’s the Professor doing?” Jubilee asks. Bright pink sparks pop from her hands in excitement. The crowd hushes, eager to learn the truth. 

Jean stops fighting the smile, projected pulses of absolute joy from the Professor’s mind washing over her. “He said yes.”

The group of students cheer—albeit not very loudly, because the Professor’s study is just across the grounds with the window open, and no matter what they tell the newbies, no one wants to risk Magneto’s wrath. There’s a general wave of excitement, a  _ good for them about time I hope they’re happy  _ rolling across the crowd, and one very plaintive,  _ Does that mean they’re going to stop eyefucking across the table, it puts me off my breakfast  _ from Clarice. Jean laughs out loud at that one.

(Charles can hear the children outside, feel Jean’s amusement, and knows that they know. But inside, Erik is still watching him with that beautifully tender expression just on this side of heartbreak, and Charles forgets about the students when he pushes forwards to kiss his fiancé, again and again and again, each one another promise of forever.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the quotes at the beginning of each chapter are from richard siken’s poem snow and dirty rain, title is from sarah kaye and phil kay’s spoken word piece of the same name
> 
> tumblr: @doctortwelfth

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: @doctortwelfth
> 
> yes i uploaded this before but i didn’t like it so i’m editing and reuploading. part two probably coming tomorrow !!


End file.
